Way of the Knights

Chapter 622 - The Exiles

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"What's going on!"

"What the hell is this!"

"Shit! Shit! What is this barrier! It's too damn solid!"

"Argh! Love, Faith, Piety! What is the meaning of this!"

"You fuckers! What did you do!?"

"We weren't the ones responsible for this! We're innocent!" Love yelled.

"Right! We were sleeping soundly just like you guys when this occurred!" Faith stated while banging at the golden-silver barrier.

"I told you two! I swear I felt a rat following us but you dismissed it and told me I was overthinking things! Now we're trapped, again! Argh! Who! Who are you!? Show yourself, damn it!!" Piety roared behind his cage. 

"Come out! Coward! Show yourself!"

"Yeah! Show yourself, damn it! Face us!"

"Fuck you whoever you are!!" 

"Hmm, maybe it's a good idea to place a silencing seal as well." Raven whispered to himself as he heard the Commandments roaring in anger once they saw that the seal on their prisons were fortified. 

Amidst the complaints and roars of indignation, Raven completely ignored all of it. There was no reason for him to listen to them since he didn't care about their well being anyway, it would be much better if these things just perished but unfortunately, he can't kill them now. 

Each one of these prisoners are closely connected to the Devil Emperor, if they abruptly died, the Devil Emperor will surely be alarmed and no one can tell what it's going to do next. Raven needed to be careful when dealing with them which is why up until now, he still hadn't showed himself, in fact he had no plans of revealing himself. 

Raven drew the Brush of Wisdom once again and drew several more runes. He decided to make the prisoners suffer some more by placing a Silencing Seal and Link Interrupting Seal to their prison cells.

The Silencing Seal will prevent them from communicating to each other or anyone actually. Their voices will be contained within their cells until it dissipates. The Link Interrupting Seal will numb their connection to the Devil Emperor, enabling them to send accurate reports through their shared link with him or receive orders from it. The seal will only interrupt the connection not break it since Raven didn't want to do that. 

Once the new seals were placed, silence immediately followed. Now, not only did the Commandments suffer from darkness, they will suffer from silence as well. Their connection towards the Devil Emperor had been disrupted without their knowledge and they're about to suffer more since Raven still wasn't done with them. 

Using a good chunk of his energies, Raven invoked the Chains of Order to descend. He drew towards the seals he repaired earlier, further fortifying them and connecting it to each other. Now, Raven had no doubts that these prisoners will be able to break the seals anymore, unless its the Devil Emperor itself broke it for them. 

He could feel them banging through the barrier to no avail. Raven chuckled and chose to observe them some more. He still remained hidden from their senses therefore he's absolutely safe. Raven was also holding the end of the Chains of Order, just from holding it, he could feel the energy it was draining from the prisoners. 

Raven attached it to a seal and kept it for now. And since he already returned the escaped prisoners to their cells and even fortified their seals. His job was over. Not a single trace of doubt was on Raven's heart, he believed that they won't be able to break free from their current predicament so there's no need to stay here anymore. 

With that in mind, Raven took the return seal from his pocket and ripped it in half.

---

When Raven regained his senses, the first thing he did was to deactivate the runes he applied to himself. Since he was no longer in the Valley of Despair, there was no need for him to keep these runes active. 

He did a brief scan at the Storm Dweller's Peak and discovered that nobody's around, not even the Grand Elder nor his wife was here. This caused Raven to frown so he closed his eyes and spread his senses to cover majority of the area around him. 

Raven sent out probes and when they returned to him, he was shocked by the feedback he received.

There was a huge commotion outside of the sect. He felt a strong evil presence confronting the Sect Master and the main force of the sect. He could also see a few dead bodies around as well as damaged infrastructures. 

Raven clucked his tongue and immediately began flying towards the exit. As he flew, he was drawing numerous runes which glittered with power around him. By the time he arrived, he could see several people injured and the Sect Master as well as the Grand Elder confronting five hooded figures who oozed with pure evil energy. 

Raven didn't hesitate. The moment he descended, he made his presence known to all. Lifting the Brush of Wisdom with his right hand, his deep and solemn voice echoed through the ears of everyone around. 

"Wretched Curs! I shall Seal your Movement. In my presence, none of you shall be allowed to move even a single muscle!!!"

*Weng! Crash!!!!!*

With only a single move of his brush, Raven incapacitated the movement of the hooded figures, causing them to fall to the ground, unable to move even a single muscle. Still, Raven was far from done. 

"I will take away any thoughts of you trying to escape. I shall Seal your Strength away from you!"

"Entertain no ideas of resisting. I will Seal away your Will." 

"I won't allow you to hurt anyone. I will Seal away your Energies!"

"Do not ask for help, none shall save you unless I allow it. I shall Seal your Fate."

"And just in case, I shall Seal away your Past, Present and Future." 

One seal, one brush movement. Raven was relentless and didn't take any chances. With he arrival, he robbed all of them any thoughts of resisting, escaping or asking for help. In fact, he even robbed them of the option to kill themselves. 

The five hooded figures had their eyes widening in despair as they felt utterly suppressed. Just a few moments ago, they still stood a chance at escaping unharmed, their egos inflated a bit after seeing that not even the Sect Master nor the Grand Elder was able to stop them from destroying some things and killing some of their disciples. 

However, their overconfidence caused their demise. They never imagined that there was someone who excels at Sealing in the sect that could completely suppress them using a few brush strokes. 

"Hmph!" Raven snorted as he peeled his attention away from them and looked back to see a lot of people gawking at him. 

"That was like, the coolest entrance I've ever seen. Damn!!" Logan chuckled but that was a mistake since there was a deep cut on his abdomen that has closed a few seconds ago but re-opened because he laughed. 

"Of course, who do you think I am?" Raven rhetorically asked he drew a massive healing rune in the air which immediately started affecting those he deemed as allies. 

"I'm back Senior Brother.' Raven told the Sect Master, helping him to stand properly. 

"It's good that you're back. Otherwise, we would've been in some serious trouble." The Sect Master said, grimacing in pain as he had a large wound on his chest from the fight earlier.

"All three of the escaped prisoners were returned to their cell, I've also fortified the seals on top of invoking the Chains of Order to make sure that they can't escape. I've recorded the whole process, I'll show you how it went later but for now..." Raven looked back to the suppressed hooded figures and asked:

"I'm guessing these people were the ones you caught infiltrating us?" 

"Yes, it is indeed them. We weren't expecting something like this either." The Grand Elder replied, his breathing was somewhat ragged due to exhaustion. "They all posed as important figures of the sect, I'm afraid they now hold important intel about our forces."

"Exiles, right?" Raven asked. To which they nodded. A groan escaped his lips as he looked coldly at the heretics. "Good thing I arrived pretty early. They seem pretty strong though, Empyreans every single one of them. I'm guessing that they must be some important figures on their organization."

"No. They were lower ranked echelons." The Sect Master said, causing Raven to be surprised. "Their upper echelons wouldn't risk to infiltrate us just for intel since they are the core of the Exiles. Their presence is required every single gatherings they do. At least, that what they told us..."

"Since they managed to worm their way in pretty deep, I'd figure that they've been here for a while. The one who loosened the seal on the Commandments should be amongst them as well." Raven said as he saw the injuries of his allies closing up thanks to the rune. 

A cold gleam appeared on Raven's eyes as he thought of something.

"So they know a lot of stuff huh? And from what you told me earlier, it seems that they could be talkative when they wanted to..." Raven walked towards them with a chilling smile on his face. He crouched down and whispered next to them.

"We're going to get to know each other pretty darn well, isn't that right boys?" 

Without a doubt, Raven's words caused them to shiver in fear.